


Just another meeting of the council of counts

by manateehugger



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manateehugger/pseuds/manateehugger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set sometime after Miles takes over as voting deputy for his father. It chronicles another harrowing meeting devoted to duty, justice and trying not to die from boredom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just another meeting of the council of counts

Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, ruler of three worlds, sat upon the dais during a full meeting of the Council of Counts. He privately swore that he was going to seriously rethink his stance on loosening censorship restrictions on imported vid shows. His more liberal advisors had suggested that a freer trade of information would help introduce more Barrayarans to Galactic and this in turn would help to make them more socially aware. The goal was to enlighten the unenlightened about appropriate social attitudes so they didn’t end up with another incident like the one with the Vervani ambassadoress. Gregor expertly suppressed a shudder, it didn’t bear thinking about how much custard had ended up on the walls of the Mirror hall after that fiasco. Only that It had taken days, despite his custodial staffs best efforts to get it out of the carpeting… and the ceiling.

So Gregor had allowed certain galactic channels to be made accessible to the general population. That decision had led to this.

Count Heinrich Vorziefle was now standing in the Speaker’s Circle espousing his great concerns on the possibilities that the Cetagandans were creating a weather device which would unleash an “Octo-nado” upon the Barrayaran populace. He seemed to have garnered this dubious information from a science fiction film on one of the intergalactic channels. Gregor had watched bits of it as part of an ImpSec briefing after Vorziefle had submitted his formal request with the required one third house signatures necessary to place a motion on the Council’s docket. The holovid told the story of a criminal mastermind creating a weather device which created a tornado that happened to destroy a secret government facility and suck up super intelligent octopi. These highly intelligent and apparently malevolent octupi had then been rained down upon a major metropolitan city. Gregor thought the acting poor and the octopi lacking in particular brilliance. Though he had to admit that the scene where the one octopus was holding six plasma arcs while chasing the hero in the abandoned warehouse had been rather menacing.

Still, Gregor was very sorry about the untimely death of Count Vorziefle’s father who had unfortunately been crushed to death by a horse. Rumor had it that he was perhaps a little too fond of his horses. But really the man had done a fine job as count and at least he wouldn’t be up in the Speaker’s circle yammering on about the dangers of tornadoes full of octopi ready to murder the Barrayaran populace given half the chance. Really he had to stop losing counts to horse related accidents like this, the former Count Vorziefle was the second count in five years where this had happened. Gregor was sorry in a way that he couldn’t just sit these men down and have Cordelia explain safe sex habits to them. Though he remembered when she’d tried to do that with him. 

“And we have to protect our children from those eight legged mutant freaks and their damned freak masters,” Vorziefle declared passionately. Gregor was grateful to note that Vorziefle was slowly but surely winding down his speech. This relief was short lived as another of his supporters stood up to take Vorziefle’s place in the speaker’s circle.

Vorziefle’s petition had requested that the council deal with the possibility of dangerous mutants. Gregor suspected that the vagueness of the statement was due more to Vorziefle’s allies than the young man specifically. Aside from Vorziefle, his supporters were not overly concerned with science fiction films. If that had been the case Gregor could have called in a few scientists to expertly discredit and alleviate any fears about malevolent octopi with a thirst for blood. Instead Vorziefle’s group backed his absurd claims for much shrewder reasons. His followers were concerned with two different but not exclusive agendas. First were his Isolationist and conservative vor fellows who were upset with Gregor for allowing the Cetagandans to set up an embassy in Vorbarra Sultana. It was murmured in private and whispered in the background but never to Gregor’s face that his forefather’s had not spent two decades fighting Cetagandan occupation just for the emperor himself to invite them back to accommodations in the heart of the empire. The other faction who supported Vorziefle were old school counts with large agricultural lands. Farmers here were still skeptical of genetically modified and vat grown foods. A large minority still argued that it was unhealthy, even deadly to consumers. Unfortunately growing genetically modified foods was cheaper and in high demand from the younger generations who were interested in becoming more galactic. It seemed that soon only farmers willing to use genetically modified foods would be able to turn a profit and survive. Or so the old guard grumbled. The problem was that counts who sided with traditional farmers and banned GMOs were losing money and citizens to counts that allowed GMO usage. These counts were hoping to extend the concept of genetic mutants to include genetically modified foods and thereby stop both the loss of workers and money to their more galactic minded fellows. 

Indeed the next speaker for Vorziefle’s side began first with a patriotic speech about fighting the Cetagandans off then leading into a monologue about fighting off their food products.

Finally the turn came for the opposition to voice their opinions. To no one’s surprise Lord Miles Vorkosigan was first to take the stage. It was impossible to get through a meeting without the little bugger saying something. Gregor could never tell when Miles was going to be a help to progressing Gregor’s private agenda of finishing up in a timely manner and moving on to more important things and when Miles’s maniacal mind would get ahead of himself and lead to deeper trouble. Gregor hoped the man would be a voice of reason in this argument. 

“Sire, my fellows, I too agree that hurricanes full of flying octopi are a very serious concern for all involved myself included.”  
Damn it Miles! So much for being a voice of reason, Gregor did nothing so obvious as sigh and throw himself back in the chair but he allowed a slight relaxation in his posture.   
Miles then went off on his own patriotic tangent about fighting the Cetagandans and his family’s role in that before leading back to the topic of Vorkosigan Vashnoi.

“Of course it took us two generations and countless millions of lives were destroyed in the process of fighting off the Cetagandan invaders. Hell, parts of my district are still uninhabitable thanks to them. But, consider that things would have undoubtedly gone more easily for our ancestors if we hadn’t been kept cut off from the rest of the nexus. Imagine if we had been able to keep up technologically with the other planets. The Cetagandans saw us as a weak and backwards civilization ripe for the conquest. I know how much you conservative Vor hate things that seem unnatural, even mutant, but let’s try not to fall too far behind again because prejudice, eh? Who knows, those mutants you hate might someday be useful in serving the Imperium,” Miles smiled an edged smile at Vorziefle who failed to look anything other than self-righteous, “ I don’t want any other governments thinking that we can be conquered easily. This brings up a better point, instead of trying to barricade ourselves away from change and hope it will go away perhaps we could be more pro-active. Hm, let’s say we increase the size of the fleet surrounding Komarr to keep that wormhole secure and our populace safe.”

Gregor sat up slightly and privately consulted the list of other issues on the docket today. Increasing the fleet size around Komarr was on there. There had been recent reports of space pirates getting more aggressive and attacking the trade ships of various companies. Gregor had been forced to remain neutral on this topic since Toscane Enterprises had been one of the ships boarded and confiscated by pirates. He could not afford to be seen as a man so besotted with his new Komarran wife that he spent billions of dollars hunting down the ruffians who had stolen her property. Instead he had been forced to listen to both sides as the conservative vor argued that if the Komarrans were having problems with space pirates then they could afford to hire some mercenaries to guard their ships rather than wasting Barrayaran tax dollars. Then some insensitive fool would laugh and point out how ineffective that had been the last time the Komarrans had tried that maneuver. 

Miles continued his impassioned speech a while longer, not merely to get his point across but undoubtedly because he enjoyed a captive audience. Nevertheless, at the end of the session the bill to stop mutants had been vetoed and the one to increase the fleet size in Komarran space had been approved.  
“An impressive speech, Lord Vorkosigan,” Gregor murmured for Miles’s ear alone.

Miles smirked up at him, “did you expect anything less?”

Gregor shook his head, he needn’t have bothered congratulating Miles. The man’s head was plenty big enough. Still, Gregor had to appreciate that Miles had gotten the votes in where they needed to be and at least this time he hadn’t caused an international incident. Gregor was very happy with how this turned out and considered a new job for his Auditor. Something to get him pointed away from the general population when Miles got bored with politicking.


End file.
